Trust me: The manner in which the “the war on drugs” is portrayed in the media [or along the campaign trail] bears little resemblance to what actually unfolds on the ground. Especially in regard to the drug cartels in Mexico. Here there are “players” in a ghastly drama that are understood far better by the folks pulling the strings behind the curtain.
And the violence that goes along with it is no exception.
In other words, no place for an idealist.
It’s easy enough to create this narrative inside your head where the good guys are always dressed in white and the bad guys always dressed in black. Then we always know who to root for beyond all doubt.
In the end though the “war on drugs” is one gigantic whack-a-mole operation. As long as the culture itself creates an enormous demand for “alternative realities”, there will always be those ready, willing and able to supply it for them. And that’s before we get to prison industrial complex that thrives on drug convictions.
So, how much of this might possibly be “based on a true story”. Will the “average citizen” ever really know?
And then there are the tunnels. How high does Trump’s wall have to be to effectively block them?
And aside from Kate, it’s nothing but men, men and more men. Men intent on being men. Which of course explains a lot. Apart from the role she unwittingly plays covering for the CIA, Kate seems to exist only to contrast the “female sensitivity” to this bloody mayhem versus the Macho Man willingness to not only engage it, but to revel in it. These “warriors” are not reluctant to use violence, they’re reluctant not to. Not that the drug cartels are not equally invested in it.
So, is she man enough to get with the program?
As for the end, I would have jumped to the closing credits with Kate still pointing the gun at Alejandro.
Look for Keyser Söze.
IMDb
[b]While Benicio Del Toro’s character is frequently silent in the movie, he initially had more lines. “In the original script, the character explained his background several times to Kate,” Del Toro says. “And that gave me information about who this guy was, but it felt a little stiff to have someone you just met 15 minutes ago suddenly telling you what happened to him and who he is.” Working with director Denis Villeneuve, Del Toro began cutting some of his dialogue to preserve the mystery of who his character is; Villeneuve estimates they cut 90 percent of what Del Toro was originally intended to say by screenwriter Taylor Sheridan. Like Del Toro, Villeneuve saw power in stripping the character down to a brooding silence, stating that dialogue belongs to plays and “movies are about movement, character, and presence, and Benicio had all that.”
The word “Sicario” derives from the Latin word “Sicarius”, meaning “dagger man”. The term was used by Romans to describe Jewish Zealots who killed Roman citizens using a “sica” or small dagger hidden in their cloaks.
The banner in the Juarez is hard to read, but you can clearly see “Los Estamos Observando” that translates to “We are watching you”.
Denis Villeneuve describes the film as a dark poem. [/b]
at wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicario_(2015_film
trailer: youtu.be/7XLQ1bkSLDo
SICARIO [2015]
Directed by Denis Villeneuve
[b]Dave [to Kate]: PD found something.
…
News reporter on TV: Such a heavy body count this close to Phoenix, is without a doubt a major escalation for the cartels. There will be pressure in Washington to explain how such a dramatic outrage could happen so deep inside the American heartland. We may be talking about the victims of a turf war, or maybe some illegal immigrants who are tied to a ransom, but it will be some weeks before we have a clearer picture on who the victims are.
…
Kate: What’s our objective?
Matt: To dramatically overreact.
…
Dave: Kate, you must volunteer for an inter-agency task force. Think very hard before you respond. You wanna be a part of this?
Kate: Do we get an opportunity at the men responsible for today?
Matt: The men who were really responsible for today, yeah.
…
Kate: So, this is your specialty? The cartels in Mexico are your specialty?
Alejandro: Yeah. Yeah.
Kate: Is there anything I should know?
Alejandro: You’re asking me how a watch works. For now, just keep an eye on the time.
…
Alejandro [to Kate]: Listen, nothing will make sense to your American ears, and you will doubt everything that we do. But in the end you will understand.
…
Kate: Is he CIA? Are you?
Matt: He’s a DOD advisor, just like me.
Kate: No, he’s not.
Matt: Just pay attention to Alejandro. If he says to do somethin’, just do it.
Kate: I’m not authorized to follow orders from Alejandro! Especially in Mexico!
Matt: Fine. Then stay here. But you don’t want to, do you?
Kate: I just wanna know what I’m getting into.
Matt: Kate, you volunteered to get on this train because you know you’re doing nothing in Phoenix. You’re just sweeping up a fucking mess. In six months, every single house you raid will be rigged with explosives. Do you want to find the guys responsible? Yes or no?
Kate: Yes.
…
Alejandro [to Kate motioning towards four naked men strung from an overpass by their feet]: Welcome to Jurez.
Agent: It’s brilliant what they do. When they mutilate a body like that, they make people think they must have been involved, they must have deserved such a death 'cause they did something. It’s brilliant what they do.
…
Agent: Those aren’t firecrackers.
…
Alejandro: Keep an eye out for the State Police. They’re not always the good guys.
…
Kate [aloud to herself after two cars are shot up and 8 men are dead]: What the fuck are we doing?
…
Agent: This is gonna be on the front page of every newspaper in America.
2nd Agent: No, it won’t. It won’t even make the papers in El Paso.
…
Matt: Got a little nutty, huh?
Kate: Nutty? Yeah, that was fucking illegal. You wanna start a war? You’re a fucking spook! And him! I mean, who the fuck is that?
Matt: Told you, you could stay here.
Kate: Jesus Christ. You just spray bullets at…Yeah, sure, there’s just fucking civilians everywhere. I’m not a soldier! This is not what I do!
Matt: Whoa! Don’t sell yourself short, all right? The reason Reggie’s home is I know he wasn’t ready for this. But he better get ready real quick because this is the future, Kate! Jurez is what happens when they dig in. This is it!
Kate: What am I doing here?
Matt: What you’re doing here is you’re giving us the opportunity to shake the tree and create chaos. That’s what this is! In the meantime, just sponge everything up you see.
…
Steve: There’s rumors of a tunnel. Fausto’s main road into Arizona. If you’re doing what I think you’re doing, that’s the best place to cross. If you can find it. But time is against you. In three days, nobody will be where they are today.
[He motions towards a room]
Steve: Shall we?
Alejandro: No, it’s better if you don’t. Something happens in that room, it’s easier to say you didn’t see anything.[/b]
As with the “war on terror”, the “war on drugs” engages one or another rendition of torture.
[b]Reggie: Hey, Kate. Tell me what happened in El Paso.
Kate: We weren’t in El Paso. We were in Mexico.
…
Matt: What’s up? Everything okay? You look very serious.
Reggie: There’s “in the dark” and there’s the way you’re treating us. I want to know the objective or I walk, period.
Matt: Then go. I didn’t ask you to be here. She did.
Kate: I walk, too.
[Matt considers that]
Matt: Okasy, what do you wanna know?
Reggie: Everything.
Matt: Fuckin’ lawyers. All right. Guillermo told us about a tunnel east of Nogales, near Sasabe. Now we’re tryin’ to find out what areas near there migrants avoid, so we can find the tunnel. That better?
Kate: Guillermo, he just “told you” where the drug tunnel is? He just told you?
Matt: Guillermo didn’t have any other options. We send him back across the border, he’s a dead man. Now he gets to spend the next 30 years in an American prison, in relative safety.
Reggie: Just tell us the truth, man.
Matt: We are gonna make enough noise that Manuel Diaz is called back to Mexico to see his boss. That’s the truth.
Reggie: And then?
Matt: And then we know where his boss is.
Alejandro: His name is Fausto Alarcon – “El Verdugo”. Every day across that border, people are kidnapped or killed by his hand or with his blessing. To find him would be like discovering a vaccine. You understand the value of that?
Reggie: All right, we’re good. Just don’t keep us in the dark.
…
Reggie: I used to see guys like Matt in Iraq. Gotta be careful around these people. CIA’s not supposed to work this side of the fence.
Kate: He’s a DOD advisor.
Reggie: You really believe that? You need somebody watching your six, 'cause I promise you they aren’t.
Kate: You know, we’re not even scratching the surface doing what we’re doing. And they are.
Reggie: Well, you sure picked the motherfuckers to show us.
…
Matt: What’s the password?
Kate: Moron.
…
Kate: These are all Manuel Diaz’s accounts?
Agent: Yeah. Cash deposits made daily in $9,000 increments.
Kate: So, it doesn’t have to be reported.
Agent: That’s right.
Kate: And you can seize that?
Agent: I already have. And I’ll go through these wire transfer numbers and freeze all these accounts as well.
Banker: Here you go.
Agent: Damn, that’s smart.
Kate: What?
Agent: This is a bank line of credit. See, you make payments over what you owe, and it doesn’t show up as cash, it shows up as a negative loan balance. It’s never reported to anyone. IRS, DEA… This money is invisible.
Kate: How much does he have?
Agent: Take a look.
Kate: Oh, my God.
…
Kate: They just seized $17 million.
Matt: It’s a bogus bust, Kate.
Kate: What?
Matt: You can’t prosecute it. No one controls who deposits money in an account. An attorney will have that money back in a few months, but a lot of heads will roll before that.
Kate: But we can arrest Manuel for now. We can get him off the street.
Matt: We gotta get Manuel called back to Mexico. That’s the objective…
Kate: We have no jurisdiction in Mexico. We have nothing. We need to do something now.
Matt: Can’t arrest him.
…
Kate: $9,000 is deposited into this account every day in cash, for five years.
Dave: That’s not illegal. It’s suspect, but it isn’t illegal.
Kate: I think the IRS might think it’s illegal.
Dave: What do you want, Kate? What would you like done here?
Kate: I want to follow some semblance of procedure. That’s what I want. To build a prosecutable case.
Dave: We prosecuted more felony drug cases in this region last year than in the two previous years combined. Are you feeling that on the street? You getting the vibe that we’re winning?
Kate: No.
Dave [turning to Reggie]: Do you?
Reggie: No sir, I don’t.[/b]
The problem of course is that even given the tactics of the goon squads, we don’t exactly see a “winning vibe” now either, do we? As long as the drugs are illegal and the demand is high, there will be cartels around to make the big, big, big bucks on it.
[b]Government official [to Kate]: Advisors like Matt come in, they stir the pot, they cause the criminals to react and make mistakes. That’s how we build cases against the individuals that actually make a difference in this fight. It’s when they’re nervous, when they stop trusting their crews, when they move their money. These are all opportunities to strike. And that’s the purpose of people like Matt.
Dave: Kate, this isn’t something that I dreamed up myself. I don’t have the authority to hire advisors, or authorize joint agency missions, or fly agents from Air Force bases. Are you understanding me? These decisions are made far from here by officials elected to office, not appointed to them. So, if your fear is operating out of bounds, I am telling you, you are not. The boundary’s been moved.
…
Kate: You used me as bait.
Matt: Nah, you used yourself as bait. I told you not to go in the bank. You brought him back here, though. That was smart.
Kate: Yeah. Love how we’re gonna pretend like I planned this.
Matt: Why don’t you just write that in your report. Come on! This is good news! They’re gonna call Manuel back soon. Isn’t that the point?
…
Matt [to Ted]: You know what the beauty is of you being so beat to a pulp? 'Cause no one’s gonna notice a few more scratches. This is a new deal. I’m the one who decides whether your daughter’ll get Federal protection, Or whether we post your ex-wife’s address on the Internet. I decide whether you go to prison in a work camp in Missouri, or a kill house like Corcoran. This is where you negotiate how to survive, my friend.
…
Kate: I just tried to have sex with my hitman.
Alejandro: Nah, he’s no assassin…he just wanted to know what you know. They’re after usm not you.
…
Matt: All right, we’ll get you some extra gear.
Kate: We have tac gear in the car.
Matt: All right. Good. You guys will hang back when we get there, okay?
Kate: Then why are we going?
Matt: 'Cause CIA can’t operate within US borders without a domestic agency attached. I told you you’d be useful.
Kater: So, that’s it. That’s why I’m here.
Matt: Yeah, that’s it. That’s why you’re here.
…
Matt: Now, you listen. You went up the wrong tunnel. You saw things you shouldn’t have seen.
Kate: What is Medellin?
Matt: Medellin? Medellin refers to a time when one group controlled every aspect of the drug trade, providing a measure of order that we could control. And until somebody finds a way to convince 20% of the population to stop snorting and smoking that shit, order’s the best we can hope for. And what you saw up there, was Alejandro working toward returning that order.
Kate: Alejandro works for the fucking Colombian Cartel. He works for the competition.
Matt: Alejandro works for anyone who will point him toward the people who made him. Us. Them. Anyone who will turn him loose. So, he can get the person that cut off his wife’s head, and threw his daughter into a vat of acid. Yeah. That’s what we’re dealing with.
Kate: You can’t do this. You can’t. I’m sure as shit not the person you’re gonna hide it all behind.
Matt: You need to just take a breath.
Kate: I’m gonna fuckin’ talk.
Matt: No, you’re not.
…
Alejandro: Every night you have families killed. And yet, here you dine. Tonight should be no different.
Fausto: Do you think the people that sent you here are any different? Who do you think we learned it from? The grieving lawyer…Your wife, you think she’d be proud of what you’ve become?
Alejandro: Don’t forget about my daughter.
Fausto: You’re little girl. It wasn’t personal.
Alejandro: For me it is.
Fausto: Not in front of my boys.
Alejandro: Time to meet God.
[he shoots both boys and his wife dead]
Alejandro: Go ahead and finish your meal.
[he shoots Fausto dead]
…
Alejandro: I would recommend not standing on balconies for a while, Kate. Sit down. You look like a little girl when you’re scared. You remind me of the daughter they took away from me.
[long pause]
Alejandro: I need you to sign this piece of paper. It basically says that everything we did was done by the book.
Kate: I can’t sign that.
Alejandro: Sign it.
[she shakes her head]
Alejandro: It’s okay.
Kate: I can’t sign that.
[he puts a gun under her chin]
Kate: God!
Alejandro: You would be committing suicide, Kate.
[he wipes away her tears]
Alejandro: Come on. Sign it.
[she signs it]
Alejandro: You should move to a small town, somewhere the rule of law still exists. You will not survive here. You are not a wolf, and this is a land of wolves now. [/b]